by admin on February 1, 2012
WASHINGTONA — House Republicans plan legislation granting small businesses – and potentially nearly every company in the country – a 20 percent income tax deduction, a GOP leader said Wednesday as the party stepped up its election-year competition with President Barack Obama over job creation.
The tax cut would apply to every business with fewer than 500 employees, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in a memo released to reporters.
If the bill makes no exceptions, that means the reduction would apply to 99.9 percent of the nation’s 27.3 million firms, according to Census Bureau data for 2008, the most recent year available. Companies of that size employ about half the country’s 121 million paid workers, the Census data shows.
While there is no formal definition of a small business, most industries use 500 employees as the cutoff, as does the Small Business Administration when it conducts research, according to a Treasury Department paper issued last summer.
The bill is to be introduced next month. An aide said the deduction would apply to businesses filing either individual tax returns, as many do, or corporate returns, but added that no decisions have been made about the measure’s price tag, how long the tax cut would last or other details.
A deduction is an amount taxpayers can deduct from their income before they determine how much they owe in taxes.
Cantor announced the proposal a day after Obama said lawmakers should quickly enact his own menu of tax breaks for small businesses, including some GOP-written measures that have already started moving in Congress.
Illustrating the political stakes involved, Cantor emphasized that the GOP proposal would help small businesses “retain and create new jobs” and set a symbolic goal of approving the bill by mid-April, when federal income taxes are due.
“I hope every Democrat will join us in passing the small business tax cut by April 15,” he said.
The dueling proposals let each party show it is trying to help an important constituency that is also popular with voters. Any eventual bipartisan agreement would also help them demonstrate that they are capable of cooperation, at a time when polls show the voters have record low opinions of lawmakers.
With the economy still in the doldrums and looming as the top issue in November’s elections, Republicans have long embraced a broad tax-cutting agenda. It includes reducing the top income tax rates paid by individuals and businesses from their current 35 percent to 25 percent.
In the 2013 budget he will unveil this month, Obama plans to include a series of small business proposals, including some that the GOP has started pushing through Congress. He wants to eliminate capital gains taxes on investments in small businesses and extend for another year the ability of all businesses to immediately deduct their costs for purchasing equipment and software.
He is also pushing a new 10 percent tax credit for small businesses that hire additional people or boost wages this year.
Republicans have long charged that Obama’s efforts to rebuild the economy, including the 2009 economic stimulus, have failed. On Wednesday, Cantor noted that several Obama proposals are GOP ideas.
“We’ve been asking the president to join us to help small businesses, so we’re very excited about that and hopefully we can get something done,” he said of the president’s proposal.
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by admin on February 1, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is trying to fix a stubborn drag on the economy by allowing millions of more homeowners to refinance their mortgages at lower interest rates even if they owe more than their homes are worth, tackling a difficult issue of vital concern in states key to President Barack Obama’s re-election.
Obama on Wednesday was to draw attention to a proposal he outlined in his State of the Union address to allow homeowners with privately held mortgages to take advantage of record low rates, for an annual savings of about $ 3,000 for the average borrower. Obama was detailing his plan during a visit to a northern Virginia community center.
The administration proposal faces a major hurdle in Congress. The program would cost between $ 5 billion and $ 10 billion, depending on participation, and would be paid for by a fee on large banks. The administration has tried unsuccessfully before to win support for such a tax on large banks.
The administration estimates that 3.5 million borrowers would have incentive to refinance under the new plan.
The plan would expand the administration’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, which allows borrowers with loans backed by government-affiliated mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance at lower rates. About 1 million homeowners have used it, well short of the 4 million to 5 million the Obama administration had expected. Moreover, many “underwater” borrowers – those who owe more than their homes are worth – couldn’t qualify.
The new administration plan would permit homeowners to refinance their mortgages into loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. To qualify, borrowers with privately held mortgages would have to have no more than one delinquency in the six months preceding refinancing. Their loans would have to fall within the mortgage limits set by the FHA in their home counties.
Under the program, banks would have to reduce mortgage balances for homeowners who owe more than 140 percent of the value of their homes.
The features of the new proposal were confirmed Wednesday by a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the program ahead of Obama’s remarks. The Wall Street Journal first reported the details Wednesday.
The Obama administration also plans to announce new industry standards for mortgage servicers, a sort of “bill of rights” for borrowers that would protect them in their transactions.
Obama also is expected to announce a program that would allow the sale of foreclosed homes by Fannie Mae to investors who would then offer the properties for rental. Administration officials say there is a high demand for rental housing and such a program would also sustain neighborhoods by keeping foreclosed homes from falling into disrepair.
A punctured housing bubble was at the center of the recession, prompting widespread foreclosures and leaving millions of homeowners with houses valued at less than their mortgages. Hit hardest were Nevada and Florida, two states that figure prominently in the presidential campaign and that Obama is counting on winning to secure re-election.
Under the refinancing plan, any homeowner current on his or her mortgage could take advantage of historically low lending rates. The average rate for a 30-year mortgage is 3.88 percent.
About 11 million Americans – roughly 1 in 4 with a mortgage – are underwater, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data firm.
Half of all U.S. mortgages – about 30 million home loans – are owned by nongovernment lenders.
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